Create and hablarenarte International Residency: Open Call

Create the national development agency for collaborative arts in Ireland and hablarenarte an independent platform based in Madrid, Spain that supports the creation, dissemination and promotion of contemporary arts and culture, are pleased to announce a Residency opportunity for a collaborative artist based in Ireland at Planta Alta in Madrid. Supported through the Arts Council of Ireland’s International Residency Initiatives Scheme, this is a one month fully funded Residency.

Having collaborated very successfully on the Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme (CAPP, 2014-2018) this Residency continues Create’s and hablarenarte’s shared practice of offering high quality supports and opportunities to professional artists and communities. Create and hablarenarte see the residency as being primarily inquiry based, offering a unique opportunity to delve into research, discourse, and engagement with the diverse publics situated within the area local to Planta Alta. As the Residency develops, hablarenarte is committed to organising access to a range of encounters, events or other public facing programming that add to the positive development of the artist’s ideas.

About the Residency

This Residency offers the successful artist an opportunity to explore ideas, transdisciplinary methodologies and interaction with international peers, in a dynamic, embedded cultural space and neighbourhood. The artist will be supported by the expert team at hablarenarte.

Planta Alta is a unique residency programme in Madrid, established by hablarenarte in 2019. It is part of Museo Situado (Situated Museum), itself an active collaborative network of local groups from the Lavapiés neighbourhood, where the Reina Sofía Museum is also engaged in participatory projects. Planta Alta places an emphasis on research, collaborative investigations, generative discourse and community based engagement – with peers, residents and broader networks. hablarenarte has a significant network of artistic and community cultural practitioners in Madrid, which will ensure the Residency can afford the artist a significant degree of peer to peer exchange, networking opportunities and engagement with the different publics that make up the neighbourhood where the residency is to be located.

hablarenarte is currently involved in a number of exciting projects and research endeavours to which the candidate’s own practice could connect with. These include events, reading groups, workshops, encounters, and educational activities related to the following topics & ideas:

• Cultural mediation and alternative institutions: We understand hablarenarte as an in/ter/dependent cultural initiative, inserted in a broader ecosystem in which small, medium and large-scale agents operate, and where an open, careful, permeable, recursive and redistributive institutionality is at stake. By participating in projects and networks with other spaces similar to ours, as well as with national institutions and international organizations, we put into play different ways of relating and understanding the place of culture in society. Mediation as a tool to establish links between the institutional framework and groups/people outside the professional field of art runs through our practice and conception of the transformative capacity of culture.

• Care and other ways of living: Taking as a starting point the deep multi-crisis that we are going through, we test ways of doing things that allow us to work and live in more sustainable ways. Residences are usually places of welcome and accompaniment. For this reason, care, hospitality, solidarity and other principles that conform to our feminist values ​​are also the subject of research in projects and initiatives that seek to unite theory and practice. These include projects centred on sharing food and commensality, on supporting artists coming from situations of emergency or conflict, or on activating suitable spaces for people with a variety of (dis)abilities. 

• Old age and childhood: Contrary to the dominant productivist and adult-centric paradigm, from hablarenarte we consider urgent the defense of inclusive societies capable of relating to, listening to, and empowering those politically “weak” subjects that are childhood and old age.
  Cultural spaces should, in our opinion, be privileged laboratories in which to test forms of intergenerational justice. For this reason, we propose and support lines of research and action aimed at generating their own contexts so that children and groups of the elderly actively participate in the construction of our culture.

We particularly welcome applications that respond to the above topics and ideas. The Residency is aimed at an individual professional artist who is interested in developing or consolidating their collaborative socially engaged arts practice. Artists must be based in the Republic of Ireland to be eligible for this opportunity. The residency runs from 1^st to 31^st March 2023. Closing date for receipt of expression of interest in 21st November 2022.

What the Residency offers

Accommodation and travel

This residency offers accommodation in one of the three bedrooms at Planta Alta. It is a condition of this award that the artist takes up the full month Residency at Planta Alta. The Residency award covers return air travel from Ireland to Madrid as well as a monthly standard pass for public transport in Madrid.

Workspace

Planta Alta provides a multi-purpose work space for residents and a library. The workspace is suitable for research, meetings and small scale works as well as the setting of encounters, workshops, group reading, projections, artistic clinics, etc.  It is also the meeting place for residents and hablarenarte’s team as curators and managers of the programme.

Stipend

The award offers a fee of €6,000 which include expenses related to local travel and subsistence. The successful applicant will meet Create and hablarenarte in advance of taking up the Residency to discuss how the opportunity can be best tailored to their needs vis a vis space, accessibility, additional support and logistics. There will also be opportunity for the selected artist to platform their practice for example a small event/public gathering etc, there will be an additional budget to support this.

Curatorial support

The team at hablarenarte will offer specialized guidance and support to the selected candidate during the residency. The alignment of the candidate’s interests and hablarenarte’s own projects and research lines, will facilitate and enrich this process.

Please be aware that, at all times, Create and hablarenarte are following public health guidelines to protect their staff and the artists, organisations and communities we serve. As the situation regarding COVID-19 and working practices evolve, this may mean changes to our planned work. Any changes will be circulated through our website and social media.

What is expected from the successful candidate

The successful candidate is expected to spend the entirety of the month-long residency in Madrid. During this month, the candidate will immerse themselves in a research or artistic collaborative project connected as much as possible to the current working lines and ongoing projects at hablarenarte/Planta Alta.

As a result of the residency, the artist is expected to produce an output for example a written text in the form of an essay/article, a zine or similar that can be delivered after their stay and in coordination with the team at hablarenarte. On top of this, and while not mandatory, the artist can propose to make a small activation in Madrid during the residency linked to their research. In such a case, they will receive support from hablarenarte’s team, who will try to connect it to other activities being organized at Planta Alta or elsewhere during the period.

Submitting an expression of interest

See Guidelines for Create and hablarenarte International Residency Award 2022, linked on this page. The closing date for receipt of Expressions of Interest / proposal is 21st November 2022.